Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer, and artist. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared alongside James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and Giant (1956). In the next ten years he made a name in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films. Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s.[1]

Hopper made his directorial film debut with Easy Rider (1969), which he and co-star Peter Fonda wrote with Terry Southern. The film earned Hopper a Cannes Film Festival Award for "Best First Work" and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (shared with Fonda and Southern). Journalist Ann Hornaday wrote: "With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, Easy Rider became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion".[2] Film critic Matthew Hays wrote "no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper".[3]

Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas, the son of Marjorie Mae (née Davis; July 12, 1917 – January 12, 2007)[6][7] and James Millard Hopper[8] (June 23, 1916 – August 7, 1982).[6] He had Scottish ancestors.[9] Hopper had two brothers, Marvin and David.[10]

Hopper was reported to have an uncredited role in Johnny Guitar in 1954 but he has stated that he was not in Hollywood when this film was made.[13] Hopper made his debut on film in two roles with James Dean (whom he admired immensely) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Dean's death in a 1955 car accident affected the young Hopper deeply and it was shortly afterwards that he got into a confrontation with veteran director Henry Hathaway on the film From Hell to Texas (1958). Hopper forced Hathaway to shoot more than 80 takes of a scene over several days before he acquiesced to Hathaway's direction. After filming was finally completed, Hathaway allegedly told Hopper that his career in Hollywood was finished.[14]

In his book Last Train to Memphis, American popular music historian Peter Guralnick says that in 1956, when Elvis Presley was making his first film in Hollywood, Hopper was roommates with fellow actor Nick Adams and the three became friends and socialized together. In 1959 Hopper moved to New York to study Method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.[15] In 1961, Hopper played his first lead role in Night Tide, an atmospheric supernatural thriller involving a mermaid in an amusement park.

In a December 1994 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Hopper credited John Wayne with saving his career, as Hopper acknowledged that because of his insolent behavior, he could not find work in Hollywood for seven years. Hopper stated that because he was the son-in-law of actress Margaret Sullavan, a friend of John Wayne, Wayne hired Hopper for a role in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), also directed by Hathaway, which enabled Hopper to restart his film career.[16] Hopper acted in another John Wayne film, True Grit (1969), and during its production he became well acquainted with Wayne. In both of the films with Wayne, Hopper's character is killed in the presence of Wayne's character, to whom he utters his dying words.

Hopper in Easy Rider wearing then radical long hair and mustache

Hopper had a supporting role as the bet-taker, "Babalugats", in Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, Hopper teamed with Peter Fonda, Terry Southern and Jack Nicholson to make Easy Rider, which premiered in July 1969. With the release of True Grit a month earlier, Hopper had starring roles in two major box office films that summer. Hopper won wide acclaim as the director for his improvisational methods and innovative editing for Easy Rider.[17] The production was plagued by creative differences and personal acrimony between Fonda and Hopper, the dissolution of Hopper's marriage to Hayward, his unwillingness to leave the editor's desk and his accelerating abuse of drugs and alcohol.[18] Hopper said of Easy Rider: "The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere".[19]

Besides showing drug use on film, it was the first film to portray the new hippie lifestyle. Hopper became a stereotype for some male youths who rejected traditional jobs and traditional American culture, partly exemplified by Fonda's long sideburns and Hopper wearing shoulder-length hair and a long mustache. They were denied rooms in motels and proper service in restaurants as a result of their radical looks.[20] Their long hair became a point of contention in various scenes during the film.[20]

Hopper was unable to capitalize on his Easy Rider success for several years. In 1970 he filmed The Last Movie, cowritten by Stewart Stern and photographed by Laszlo Kovacs in Peru, and completed production in 1971. It won the prestigious CIDALC Award at that year's Venice Film Festival, but Universal Studios leaders expected a blockbuster like Easy Rider, and did not like the film or give it an enthusiastic release, while American film audiences found it confounding – as convoluted as an abstract painting. On viewing the first release print, fresh from the lab, in his screening room at Universal, MCA founder Jules Stein rose from his chair and said, "I just don't understand this younger generation." [21] During the tumultuous editing process, Hopper ensconced himself at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico, which he had purchased in 1970,[22] for almost an entire year. In between contesting Fonda's rights to the majority of the residual profits from Easy Rider, he married singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas on Halloween of 1970. The marriage lasted eight days.

Hopper was able to sustain his lifestyle and a measure of celebrity by acting in numerous low budget and European films throughout the 1970s as the archetypal "tormented maniac", including Mad Dog Morgan (1976), Tracks (1976), and The American Friend (1977). With Francis Ford Coppola's blockbuster Apocalypse Now (1979), Hopper returned to prominence as a hyper-manic Vietnam-era photojournalist. Stepping in for an overwhelmed director, Hopper won praise in 1980 for his directing and acting in Out of the Blue. Immediately thereafter, Hopper starred as an addled short-order cook "Cracker" in the Neil Young/Dean Stockwell low-budget collaboration Human Highway. Production was reportedly often delayed by his unreliable behavior. Peter Biskind states in the New Hollywood history Easy Riders, Raging Bulls that Hopper's cocaine intake had reached three grams a day by this time, complemented by 30 beers, and some marijuana and Cuba libres.

After staging a "suicide attempt" (really more of a daredevil act) in a coffin using 17 sticks of dynamite during an "art happening" at the Rice University Media Center (filmed by professor and documentary filmmaker Brian Huberman),[23] and later disappearing into the Mexican desert during a particularly extravagant bender, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation program in 1983.

Hopper debuted in an episode of the Richard Boone television series Medic in 1955, portraying a young epileptic.

He appeared as an arrogant young gunfighter, the Utah Kid, in the 1956 episode "Quicksand" of the first hour-long western television series Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker. In the story line, the Kid gave Cheyenne Bodie no choice but to kill him in a gunfight. In 1957, he played Billy the Kid on the episode "Brannigan's Boots" of Sugarfoot with Will Hutchins.

Hopper teamed with Nike in the early 1990s to make a series of television commercials. He appeared as a "crazed referee" in those ads.[27] He portrayed villain Victor Drazen in the first season of the popular drama 24.

Hopper starred as a U.S. Army colonel in the 2005 television series E-Ring, a drama set at The Pentagon, but the series was cancelled after 14 episodes aired. Hopper appeared in all 22 episodes that were filmed. He also played the part of record producer Ben Cendars in the Starz television series Crash, which lasted two seasons (26 episodes).

Hopper had several artistic pursuits beyond film. He was a prolific photographer, painter, and sculptor.[28]

Hopper's fascination with art began with painting lessons at the Nelson-Atkins Museum while still a child in Kansas City, Missouri.[29] Early in his career, he painted and wrote poetry, though many of his works were destroyed in a 1961 fire that burned scores of homes, including his, on Stone Canyon Road[30] in Bel Air.[31] His painting style ranges from abstract impressionism to photorealism and often includes references to his cinematic work and to other artists.[1][32]

Ostracized by the Hollywood film studios due to his reputation for being a "difficult" actor, Hopper turned to photography in the 1960s with a camera bought for him by his first wife Brooke Hayward.[30] During this period he created the cover art for the Ike & Tina Turner single River Deep – Mountain High (released in 1966).[33] He would become a prolific photographer, and noted writer Terry Southern profiled Hopper in Better Homes and Gardens] as an up-and-coming photographer "to watch" in the mid-1960s. Hopper's early photography is known for portraits from the 1960s, and he began shooting portraits for Vogue and other magazines. His photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington and 1965 civil-rights march in Selma, Alabama, were published. His intimate and unguarded images of celebrities like Andy Warhol and Jane Fonda were the subject of gallery shows and were collected in a book, "1712 North Crescent Heights". The book, whose title was his address in the Hollywood Hills in the 1960s, was edited by Marin Hopper.[31] In 1960–67, before the making of Easy Rider, Hopper shot a selection of groundbreaking images that is seen as telling a remarkable history of art, artist, places and events of that time.[34]Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961–1967 was published in February 2011, by Taschen.[35]

Hopper began working as a painter and a poet as well as a collector of art in the 1960s as well, particularly Pop Art. Over his lifetime he amassed a formidable array of 20th- and 21st-century art, including many of Julian Schnabel's works (such as a shattered-plate portrait of Hopper); numerous works from his early cohorts, such as Ed Ruscha, Edward Kienholz, Roy Lichtenstein (Sinking Sun, 1964),[36] and Warhol (Double Mona Lisa, 1963);[30] and pieces by contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst and Robin Rhode. He was involved in L.A.'s Virginia Dwan and Ferus galleries of the 1960s, and he was a longtime friend and supporter to New York dealer Tony Shafrazi.[29] One of the first art works Hopper owned was an early print of Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans bought for US$75. Hopper also once owned Warhol's Mao, which he shot one evening in a fit of paranoia, the two bullet holes possibly adding to the print's value. The print sold at Christie's, New York, for US$302,500 in January 2011.[37] The proceeds of the two-day sale of some 300 pieces from Hopper's collection at Christie's went to his four children.[38]

During his lifetime, Hopper's own work as well as his collection was shown in monographic and group exhibitions around the world including theCorcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; MAK Vienna: Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, Vienna; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Cinémathèque Française, Paris, and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. In March 2010, it was announced that Hopper was on the "short list" for Jeffrey Deitch's inaugural show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).[39] In April 2010, Deitch confirmed that Hopper's work, curated by Julian Schnabel, will indeed be the focus of his debut at MOCA.[40] The title of the exhibition, Double Standard, was taken from Hopper's iconic 1961 photograph of the two Standard Oil signs seen through an automobile windshield at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, and North Doheny Drive on historic Route 66 in Los Angeles. The image was reproduced on the invitation for Ed Ruscha's second solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery in 1964.

In 2013, Harper Collins published Hopper: A Journey into the American Dream, a biography on Hopper by American writer Tom Folsom.[41]

In the late 1980s, Hopper purchased a trio of nearly identical two-story, loft-style condominiums at 330 Indiana Avenue in Venice Beach, California – one made of concrete, one of plywood, and one of green roofing shingles – built by Frank Gehry and two artist friends of Hopper's, Chuck Arnoldi and Laddie John Dill, in 1981.[43] In 1987, he commissioned an industrial-style main residence, with a corrugated metal exterior designed by Brian Murphy, as a place to display his artwork.[44]

According to Rolling Stone magazine, Hopper was "one of Hollywood's most notorious drug addicts" for 20 years. He spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s living as an "outcast" in Taos, New Mexico after the success of Easy Rider. Hopper was also "notorious for his troubled relationships with women", including Michelle Phillips, who divorced him after eight days of marriage.[45] Hopper was married five times:

Hopper has been widely reported to be the godfather of actress Amber Tamblyn;[47] in a 2009 interview with Parade, Tamblyn explained that "godfather" was "just a loose term" for Hopper, Dean Stockwell and Neil Young, three famous friends of her father's, who were always around the house when she was growing up, and who were big influences on her life.[48]

In 1994, Rip Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Hopper over a story Hopper told on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film Easy Rider. According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According to Torn's suit, it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife on him. A judge ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was ordered to pay US$475,000 in damages. Hopper then appealed but the judge again ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was required to pay another US$475,000 in punitive damages.[49]

On January 14, 2010, Hopper filed for divorce from his fifth wife Victoria Duffy.[54] After citing her "outrageous conduct" and stating she was "insane", "inhuman" and "volatile", Hopper was granted a restraining order against her on February 11, 2010, and as a result, she was forbidden to come within 10 feet (3 m) of him or contact him.[55] On March 9, 2010, Duffy refused to move out of the Hopper home, despite the court's order that she do so by March 15.[56]

On March 23, 2010, he filed papers in court alleging Duffy had absconded with US$1.5 million of his art, refused his requests to return it, and then had "left town".[57]

On April 5, 2010, a court ruled that Duffy could continue living on Hopper's property, and that he must pay US$12,000 per month spousal and child support for their daughter Galen. Hopper did not attend the hearing.[58] On May 12, 2010, a hearing was held before Judge Amy Pellman in downtown Los Angeles Superior Court. Though Hopper died two weeks later, Duffy insisted at the hearing that he was well enough to be deposed.[59] The hearing also dealt with whom to designate on Hopper's life insurance policy, which listed his wife as a beneficiary.[60] A very ill Hopper did not appear in court though his estranged wife did – case BD518046. Despite Duffy's bid to be named the sole beneficiary of Hopper's million-dollar policy, the judge ruled against her and limited her claim to one-quarter of the policy. The remaining US$750,000 was to go to his estate.[61]

On November 14, 2010, it was revealed that, despite Duffy's earlier assertion in her court papers of February 2010 that Hopper was mentally incompetent, and that his children had rewritten his estate plan in order to leave Duffy and her daughter, Hopper's youngest child Galen, destitute, Galen would in fact receive the proceeds of 40% of his estate.[62]

Hopper at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 26, 2010, two months before his death.

On September 28, 2009, Hopper, then 73, was reportedly brought by ambulance to an unidentified Manhattan hospital wearing an oxygen mask and "with numerous tubes visible".[63] On October 2, he was discharged, after receiving treatment for dehydration.[64]

On October 29, Hopper's manager Sam Maydew reported that he had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.[65] In January 2010, it was reported that Hopper's cancer had metastasized to his bones.[66]

By March 2010, Hopper reportedly weighed only 100 pounds (45 kg) and was unable to carry on long conversations.[69] According to papers filed in his divorce court case, Hopper was terminally ill and was unable to undergo chemotherapy to treat his prostate cancer.[70][71]

Easy Rider

Easy Rider is a 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper played two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South carrying the proceeds from a cocaine deal. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s.

Peter Fonda

Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda. Fonda was a part of the counterculture of the 1960s.

Illeana Douglas

Illeana Hesselberg, most commonly known as Illeana Douglas, is an American actress, director, screenwriter, and producer. Douglas has had a long-ranging diverse career as a character actor with a specialty in comedy. Notable works include work in a 2001 episode of Six Feet Under – for which she received a Primetime Emmy nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series and won the Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series award from OFTA, the Online Film & Television Association – and her work in the TV series Action opposite Jay Mohr – for which she won a Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. She can currently be seen on Turner Classic Movies where she hosts specials focused on unheralded women directors from film history.

Dennis Quaid

Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, some of his notable credits include Breaking Away (1979), Great Balls of Fire! (1989), The Right Stuff (1983), The Big Easy (1986), Innerspace (1987), The Parent Trap (1998), Frequency (2000), Traffic (2000), The Rookie (2002), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Vantage Point (2008), Footloose (2011), Soul Surfer (2011), and The Intruder (2019). For his role in Far from Heaven (2002), he won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor among other accolades.

Bridget Fonda

Bridget Jane Fonda is an American former actress. She is known for her roles in The Godfather Part III (1990), Single White Female (1992), Singles (1992), Point of No Return (1993), It Could Happen to You (1994), and Jackie Brown (1997). She is the daughter of Peter Fonda, niece of Jane Fonda and granddaughter of Henry Fonda.

Amber Tamblyn

Amber Rose Tamblyn is an American actress and writer. She first came to national attention in her role on the soap opera General Hospital as Emily Quartermaine, followed by a starring role on the prime-time series Joan of Arcadia, portraying the title character, Joan Girardi for which she received Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Her feature film work includes roles such as Tibby Rollins from the first two The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants films (2005–2008), as well as Katie Embry in The Ring (2002), Aubrey Davis in The Grudge 2 (2006) and Megan McBride in 127 Hours (2010); she had an extended arc as Martha M. Masters in the medical drama series House. She also had a starring role as Jenny on seasons eleven and twelve of the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Rip Torn

Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn Jr. is an American actor, voice artist, and comedian.

Wes Bentley

Wesley Cook Bentley is an American actor known for blockbusters and independent films.

Terry Southern

Terry Southern was an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style. Part of the Paris postwar literary movement in the 1950s and a companion to Beat writers in Greenwich Village, Southern was also at the center of Swinging London in the 1960s and helped to change the style and substance of American films in the 1970s. He briefly wrote for Saturday Night Live in the 1980s.

Frances Ford Seymour

Frances Ford Seymour was a Canadian-born American socialite, the second wife of actor Henry Fonda, and the mother of actors Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood is a book written by Peter Biskind and published by Simon & Schuster in 1998. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is about the 1970s Hollywood, a period of American film known for the production of such films such as The Godfather,The Godfather Part II,Chinatown,Taxi Driver,Jaws,Star Wars,The Exorcist, and The Last Picture Show. The title is taken from films which bookend the era: Easy Rider (1969) and Raging Bull (1980). The book follows Hollywood on the brink of the Vietnam War, when a group of young Hollywood film directors known as the "movie brats" are making their names. It begins in the 1960s and ends in the 1980s.

The Last Movie

The Last Movie is a 1971 drama film from Universal Pictures. It was written by Stewart Stern and directed by Dennis Hopper, who also played a horse wrangler named after the state of Kansas. It also starred Peter Fonda, Henry Jaglom and Michelle Phillips. Production of the movie, which cost $1 million, took place in the film's major setting, Peru.

Luke Askew

Francis Luke Askew was an American actor best known for his role in the 1969 film Easy Rider. He appeared in many westerns, and had a rare lead role in the spaghetti Western Night of the Serpent.

Jack Nicholson

John Joseph Nicholson is an American actor and filmmaker who has performed for over sixty years. He is known for playing a wide range of starring or supporting roles, including satirical comedy, romance, and dark portrayals of anti-heroes and villainous characters. In many of his films, he has played the "eternal outsider, the sardonic drifter", someone who rebels against the social structure.

Restless (2011 film)

Restless is a 2011 American romantic drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Jason Lew. It stars Henry Hopper and Mia Wasikowska. Shot in Portland, Oregon, United States, and produced by Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer for Sony Pictures Classics and Imagine Entertainment, it was released on September 16, 2011. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on May 12.

Dennis Hopper filmography

Dennis Hopper was an American actor, director, writer, film editor, photographer and artist. He made his first television appearance in 1955, and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Over the next ten years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films.

Clifford Vaughs

Clifford A. 'Soney' Vaughs was an American civil rights activist, filmmaker, and motorcycle builder. Vaughs designed the two chopper motorcycles used for the 1969 film 'Easy Rider', while an Associate Producer on the film. He also produced and directed the documentary 'What Will the Harvest Be?' (1965) and 'Not So Easy' (1972).